I was pretty worried that my pre-game ruminations yesterday were going to jinx Greg Maddux, and that he was due to give up 8 runs or so in a couple innings. But no cause for concern. Maddux was brilliant last night, throwing his best game as a 21st Century Cub, and some late thunder helped Chicago ease to victory in their first game at Petco.

It was a game of mini-milestones: Sosa hit a huge bomb that tied him with Mike Schmidt for ninth on the all-time homer list.

   PLAYER             HR
-------------------------
1  Hank Aaron         755   
2  Babe Ruth          714   
3  Barry Bonds        668   
4  Willie Mays        660   
5  Frank Robinson     586   
6  Mark McGwire       583   
7  Harmon Killebrew   573   
8  Reggie Jackson     563   
9  Sammy Sosa         548
   Mike Schmidt       548

Broadcast dude Chip Caray kept mucking up another milestone. Maddux struck out batter number 2800 for his career (not bad for a supposedly "finesse" pitcher, eh), and while this did not put him past Cy Young on the career list, as Chip insisted, it did bring him within a couple of the old-timer.

   PLAYER              SO
---------------------------
1  Nolan Ryan          5714   
2  Roger Clemens       4151   
3  Steve Carlton       4136   
4  Randy Johnson       3939   
5  Bert Blyleven       3701   
6  Tom Seaver          3640   
7  Don Sutton          3574   
8  Gaylord Perry       3534   
9  Walter Johnson      3509   
10 Phil Niekro         3342   
11 Ferguson Jenkins    3192   
12 Bob Gibson          3117   
13 Jim Bunning         2855   
14 Mickey Lolich       2832   
15 Cy Young            2803   
16 Greg Maddux         2800

Though to be fair to Caray, Young's total is in some dispute. Besides the 2799 total for Young Caray had at his disposal, I've also seen a total of 2802, while 2803 seems to be the "official" number. Whatever. The point is, congrats to Maddux, he threw a great game, and is a few Ks away from entering the top 15 all-time in the category. He should end up number 13 by the end of this year, and has an outside chance of catching Fergie Jenkins at number 11 during the course of his current contract.

The other guy with a big day was resident 25th man, Jose Macias. Macias had back-to-back triples, the second of which cleared the bases in the late innings. Hey, I think Macias is as big a scrub as the next guy, but you don't complain when your scrub has a couple nice hits.

Another night game tonight. Sergio Mitre has never faced a single guy on the Padres roster, but a couple Cubs have some experience with the Pads' starter, Adam Eaton. Here's the scoop:

Batter        AB H HR RBI BB K  AVG  OBP  SLG
-----------------------------------------------
Hollandsworth 13 7 2  8   3  0  538  625  1.154 
Walker        15 8 1  4   2  2  533  588  933 
Sosa          11 3 1  2   1  4  273  333  727 
Alou          8  2 0  1   1  2  250  333  250 
Aramis        7  1 0  1   1  2  143  250  286  
Goodwin       10 1 0  0   0  3  100  100  100